After last nightOMGjust was coming home got off freeway busy Mill Valley/Tiburon intersection and my brakes gave outnothing rational worked ..4ways of vehicles coming at meAnd of course I was thinking Bond movieso I Stomped on the horn and went flipping around ahead like the movies have taught mealive and shakyso today drinking tea and reading some of the eloquent messages on forums of note , I look around and think life and living is GOODHappiness is the topic todayxoA.

this concept of "happiness" is not just a put a smile on your face, rather it is a core soul touching need to feel go deep my friendstouch inside you that; it is great need to to eat, drink, sleep, and experience happiness.My dinner was delicious; and although I am scared to drive on those brakes again, today I want to try ..xoA.

Of course I know what happened. I am a pussy but not stupid...I left the e-brake on, and it was too hot to let the front brakes function. Today went in to check it out . No further problems. My e-brake is now "skuffed" (that is a new word for me) clean and the brakes are good. What I was attempting to discuss is that I went forward instead of crashing when I couldnt stop.YES ! Life is good and maybe I need to be a more careful Pussy.

Thank You all for your messages !I do think it was a really big moment of change for me.And now maybe we can discuss this thread of Happiness. It may be several layers thicker than a simple veneer .Today while my car Dr. was checking my car I spent time hanging with old friends , really old friends , who love Palin et al. My attempts to comfort them while not screaming my rebuttals came from a deep sense of personal happiness. I really do think we can promote solutions with less conflict. xoA.

Ugly Dougly wrote:Yes, why don't you relax in this comfy couch and tell the good doctor how you feel about all this.

We are so often insulated from our own mortality. We think that's a good thing, but in some ways it cripples us.

I like hearing about this, your new outlook (not that there was anything wrong with your old outlook.)

indeed Dougly...........people get to detached from pain, danger, and death. Living with them, dancing, and laughing, keeps one alive . and, when death finally wins, we can hope we're scarred, bruised, broken and worn out.........smiling and drooling as we relive it all.

This, of course is just my opinion.......but as noted elsewhere here, I can speak from experience, coming close to death, accidental, horrid, sudden death, keeps ya as sharp as you can be...........and happy and thankful for the moments and people we have.

Hmm... yas...I seem to recall yours truly, on an archaeological expedition to San Clemente Island, which is a wild and rugged island off the coast of southern California, owned by the US Navy.

We were tasked with surveying old native American (Chumash) home sites.

Well, it was evening; the archaeology crew was settled down in the Navy barracks. Ugly Dougly decided to take a walk around the local "base", which was just the crazy rugged landscape that the Navy decided was their home.

As I walked out in the dark... suddenly the ground was gone. I was like Wile E. Coyote in one of those cartoons. As I fell, both of my hands just happened to land on rock ledges on either side of a fucking chasm. I hung there for a moment, grasping my mortality.

As I staggered back to my bunk, I realized that if I had eaten it (which I would have done without some sort of luck), with various broken limbs, nobody would have a clue as to my whereabouts. It was quite a thrill.

My brush with death was not exciting, it was a peaceful, calm zone, letting go of everything. I was bleeding to death internally, it hurt briefly, like a bad gas pain, then... almost bliss. Knowledge I was going, but no fear. Not thrilling for me, but certainly for my shipmates who were freaking out as I lay on the floor and asked to go to the ER. Lack of blood to the brain without the adrenalin rush is interesting. No angles, white light or tunnels, but I was getting there fast.

If you insist. It was August, 1984 and me and a buddy were fishing (which has nothing to do with actually catching fish) up above Lake Almanor, near the town of Chester, CA. We could hear this boom-boom-boom but thought they were blasting the roads prior to paving. We were on a granite outcasting in, for want of a better word, like a volcano in the sense that if you look up from the lake all you can see is the top of the mountain all around you. All of the sudden black clouds blew in and the temperture dropped about 30 degrees in a moment; similar to opening a freezer door. Then it happened. Lightning strikes every couple of seconds and we see dozens of people running like hell away from the lake. It was hailing and raining and after trying to "hide" from the weather under a small granite overhang, we started running down what was just moments ago a nice path but had turned into a rushing river. All of the sudden there was a deafening BOOM! and I get hit by the bolt. Imagine the brightest light you've ever seen exploding inside of your brain. It was as if I had been hit in the back with a 4X4, all of the air was sucked out of my lungs and it flung me maybe 20 feet. I hit this ground, which really was mostly granite and dirt, and my buddy turned around and yelled, "JIM!" I couldn't respond. He came and literally had to pry my fingers out of the granite and together we made it back to the truck, leaving our fishing gear and beer behind. I had hundreds of small cuts, maybe three inches long, all over my body. But for the most part I was fine. Turns out lightning has the main bolt (which would have cut me in two) and "fingers" along side. That's what got me. We hightailed it the hell out of there and didn't stop until we got to Chico. Turned out the same storm a short while later killed four climbers on El Capitan in Yosemite from lightning. Not the most pleasant day I've ever had. Thankfully we had more beer in the truck.

Dr. Pyro wrote:If you insist. It was August, 1984 and me and a buddy were fishing (which has nothing to do with actually catching fish) up above Lake Almanor, near the town of Chester, CA. We could hear this boom-boom-boom but thought they were blasting the roads prior to paving. We were on a granite outcasting in, for want of a better word, like a volcano in the sense that if you look up from the lake all you can see is the top of the mountain all around you. All of the sudden black clouds blew in and the temperture dropped about 30 degrees in a moment; similar to opening a freezer door. Then it happened. Lightning strikes every couple of seconds and we see dozens of people running like hell away from the lake. It was hailing and raining and after trying to "hide" from the weather under a small granite overhang, we started running down what was just moments ago a nice path but had turned into a rushing river. All of the sudden there was a deafening BOOM! and I get hit by the bolt. Imagine the brightest light you've ever seen exploding inside of your brain. It was as if I had been hit in the back with a 4X4, all of the air was sucked out of my lungs and it flung me maybe 20 feet. I hit this ground, which really was mostly granite and dirt, and my buddy turned around and yelled, "JIM!" I couldn't respond. He came and literally had to pry my fingers out of the granite and together we made it back to the truck, leaving our fishing gear and beer behind. I had hundreds of small cuts, maybe three inches long, all over my body. But for the most part I was fine. Turns out lightning has the main bolt (which would have cut me in two) and "fingers" along side. That's what got me. We hightailed it the hell out of there and didn't stop until we got to Chico. Turned out the same storm a short while later killed four climbers on El Capitan in Yosemite from lightning. Not the most pleasant day I've ever had. Thankfully we had more beer in the truck.

MY HERO!

FREE THE SHERPASBurners with torches is right and natural and just.-fishy.CATCH AND RELEASE.